[Editor’s note: This is the second of two stories the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript printed this week as part of Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week. The interviewee’s name has been changed to protect her family’s privacy.]
In June, Jennifer, 33, was working as a licensed nursing assistant and living with her son in an apartment in Antrim when she started feeling pain in her leg. She attributed it to the regular drives she’d been taking to Lebanon to visit a friend in the hospital. Within a couple weeks, though, she began to experience chest pain. Doctors told her she had blood clots in her lungs, which had migrated from her leg. She escaped with her life after two months out of work, but said she’s still struggling to secure housing after the ordeal.
“I’m not gonna lie, it was scary,” she said. “Every time I was seeing a specialist or seeing a doctor, they said I could have dropped dead.”
After the initial shock of discovering her life had been in danger, other fears quickly set in.
“I’m a single parent and I can’t work for an undetermined amount of time,” Jennifer said.
She had used her tax return to pay the security deposit on the apartment she lived in just a couple of months prior, and needed the income from her job in order to make rent.
“I could have gone to the town for assistance,” she said, and had received assistance in finding an apartment through the welfare department once before. However, Jennifer said that her circumstances made that nearly impossible.
“The lady is there one day a week, she’s only there for like an hour,” she said, and described trying in vain to schedule a visit between her numerous doctors’ appointments.
“Frustration sets in, you’re overwhelmed,” she said of the experience. “I spent a lot of time crying, trying to figure out what I was going to do. … I wasn’t wanting to get into a position that I couldn’t get out of.”
Ultimately, she said, “I figured I could stay with my parents and get back on my feet.” Jennifer’s parents live in Jaffrey, and Jennifer and her 12 year-old son began living with them soon after she discovered she would be out of work.
Jennifer’s health has recovered and she’s back to work at two private and in-home health care jobs. She said she feels like she’s had to start over in her search for a place of her own, though.
“Paying by the month isn’t the issue, it’s paying up front to move in. … Everyone wants first and security, or first and last. That’s a lot of money!” she said.
Jennifer filled out an income-based application for an apartment in Peterborough, but is on what she understands to be a long waitlist.
She said her son initially had trouble with the abrupt change in their circumstances.
“He was upset at first, scared that he might have to leave his school,” she said, but the school district arranged transportation so he could stay in place, as per the federal McKinney-Vento Act.
“It’s my parents, so it’s not like he has an issue where he’s at now,” she said of their new housing arrangements. “I would say he handled it pretty well.”
Living with her parents has not been stressful, she said.
“They’re all about having me do things the right way, trying to save, so when I get out this time maybe I have some money in my savings.”